


We All Want Something To Hold In The Night

by silverlining99



Series: Hunters [3]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-07
Updated: 2010-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:04:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverlining99/pseuds/silverlining99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a partner doesn't necessarily make things easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Want Something To Hold In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Continues to exist in the Supernatural universe, knowledge of which would be handy through this series. Title from Florence + The Machine's "Hardest of Hearts." And um, I also ripped off a tiny bit of dialogue/references from "The Voyage Home" and the TNG ep "Relics."

Jim never has been all that great at sharing, a fact which applies in equal measures to his personal shit and his innermost personal feelings. It's just, he's spent years covering every mile of every interstate in the country and he's done it alone, picking and choosing when and with whom to break the solitary silences based mainly on which of his many masks he feels up to wearing.

Bones, it turns out, doesn't really give a shit about a single one of his boundaries. Not that Jim can tell, at least, judging by the way Bones seeps into every single fucking space he has, without apology, without caution. For weeks now it's been day in and day out, Bones and his constant presence, his bitching, his invasion of Jim's car and his weapons stash and his *life*. More and more Jim feels like Bones is pushing in against every edge, compressing everything that's always been his and his alone.

He can't help but wonder how long he has until there's nothing left.

  


Jim pushes back, in small ways. He can't exactly help himself.

He deliberately chooses motels that make Bones roll his eyes and grumble about bodily fluids and communicable diseases. He gets up early and uses all the hot water just to hear Bones curse all the way through his own shower. He drags Bones to bars and makes him help run the pool tables and one night -- one very memorable night -- locks him out of their room for two hours while he bangs a waitress with long legs and giant tits.

After she leaves, he's too relaxed to be pissed when Bones stomps into and out of the bathroom and douses him with deodorant spray. "Congratulations on getting your rocks off," Bones snarls. "But I'll be damned if I'm sleeping with the stench of a brothel up my nose."

Jim just grins and folds his arms under his head. "You actually know what a brothel smells like? You've been holding out on me, Bones. I never would've guessed."

Bones sprays him again and crawls into his own bed.

  


  
A month and three hunts down, and Bones has managed not to get either of them killed.

It was a near thing, the once with the jikininki in San Jose. Jim'd ordinarily leave that shit alone, leave it to the locals and the rituals that usually suffice to keep scavenging in check. This one'd gone murderous as a means of satisfying its craving for dead flesh, though, so they drove the distance from Wisconsin to the coast to handle it.

Bones got one look at the thing and completely froze up. Fucking *amateur*, Jim thought for awhile, not feeling particularly charitable while his ribs were still aching from wrestling the damn thing. He eventually let it slide, though, decided he couldn't exactly blame Bones for reacting exactly the same way ninety-nine percent of other people would.

Jikininkis are, after all, a pretty fucking disgusting sight to behold.

And anyway, he'd gotten it taken care of in the end, and it didn't seem to matter much in the grand scheme of harms and fouls. On top of that Jim got more than a few minutes of entertainment out of the way Bones's eyes just about bugged out of his head while he ranted and raved about how "there are *zombie* ghosts, too? Tell me something, how the hell's a man supposed to fucking sleep at night with shit like that out there? Goddamn fucking freak show the world turns out to be, people must be blind, deaf and dumb not to realize it--"

Jim slumped over the steering wheel and laughed himself sick. He sort of figured that was kinder than pointing out just how long Bones himself had walked around in ignorant bliss, which wouldn't have accomplished a damn thing but to remind Bones what it was that opened his eyes in the first place.

Jim tries hard not to do that as a general matter. He may be a dick, sure, but he's not a *cruel* dick.

That's the reason he tells himself, anyway.

  


Days bleed together. He can tell Bones is getting restless by the way he's getting quieter. Jim had thought he'd give anything for a break in the incessant complaining, but now it's the long stretches of highway with Bones silent at his side that are driving him insane.

He finds himself wishing he knew what to say, how to just make it fucking better, already.

He finds himself wondering why the hell it bothers him so much that he doesn't have a clue.

In the middle of a cold night, he finally has an idea and guns the motor for two hours while Bones dozes beside him. At their destination he kills the engine and sits for a minute before poking Bones in the temple with two fingers. Bones jerks awake. "Wha - damn it, Jim, you could just *say* something, you know. Where the hell are we?"

"Outskirts of Missoula." Jim opens his door. "There's someone I want you to meet."

Bones gets out, groaning as he stretches his legs. Jim just shakes his head and rummages in the trunk. It's been awhile since Bones bothered to rant about the lack of legroom in the 'Vette; he supposes this qualifies. Bones has no appreciation at all for gorgeous specimens of awesome engineering.

Sometimes Jim just doesn't understand the man at all.

The church has long since fallen into disrepair and looks like it could abandoned, but for a light glowing brightly in a corner window despite the late hour. "Yo, padre!" Jim calls as they enter. "Open for business? I come bearing gifts!"

Montgomery Scott hurries out of his office. "Jim Kirk, you rascally devil. Is there any chance you come bearing a sandwich? I am *starving*."

"Sorry, not this time," Jim laughs. He holds up the heavy stone urn packed tight with the loogaroo's skin. "But I brought you something even better."

  


Scotty, as he'd expected, is delighted by the addition of the skin to his morbid collection of trophies. The details of Bones's story, however, he listens to with more reserve. As Bones concludes explaining how he wound up in Mojave, he pours them all their third round of Scotch and then sits back with a whistle. "Now that is a tale of woe," he admits.

Bones slugs back his drink and winces. "Don't know why I'm telling it to you, though. Sorry, Father, but the most religion's ever done for me is give me plenty of names to take in vain."

"You needn't apologize to me," Scotty says, shrugging. "If you'd like a lecture I'm happy to oblige, but I rather think you've got bigger worries on your plate."

"You're telling him," Jim cuts in, "because that's why I brought you here. Scotty's something of a miracle worker -- he can trust in God all day, but me? I'd rather trust in him."

"In the name of the wee man, Jim, do you have to blaspheme to my face?" Scotty snaps, but his eyes gleam with mirth when Jim grins unabashedly at him. "What he's trying to say," he directs to Bones, "is that I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways of doing things. Can't see any reason I shouldn't give it a go in your case. So if your wee lass is to be found, I mean to help you do it."

Bones stares at him suspiciously. "Why would you do that?"

Jim waits to see how much Scotty reveals to him, but the priest just shrugs. "It's a fine name you've got, McCoy. Let's leave it at that and all get some sleep. I need to think on your dilemma for a bit."

Jim slips out before morning, leaves nothing but a note promising he'll be back. For two days he just drives, speakers blaring and nothing in his rearview mirror but wide open spaces. More than once he catches himself opening his mouth to say something to a passenger who's not there, who he doesn't know when he started seeing as the normal way of things.

He cranks the music louder and tries not to think about what that means.

It's early evening when he gets back, and he walks in to find Bones slumped in a pew in the nave. Jim ignores, carefully, the quick feeling of... relief, at seeing him. "Hallalujah and praise something or other," he says lightly, sitting next to him. "For I have returned."

Bones doesn't look at him. "Wasn't sure you were going to."

"Hey, I said I would. I may not be much for having people along, but I'm even less for leaving 'em behind." Jim slides down far enough to brace his knees against the back of the pew in front of them. "So. Any progress?"

"No. He keeps wandering around babbling about-- I don't know, boolean searches and covens and devil's traps. What the hell kind of priest is this guy, anyway?"

Jim shrugs. "My kind. He's unorthodox, sure, but as far as I'm concerned that's why he's awesome."

"Hmph." Bones folds his arms and stares up towards the altar, brows drawn and furrowed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Ask the right question and I might even tell you the truth."

"Why do you do this?" Bones finally looks at him and Jim nearly flinches from the pain reflected in his eyes. "You said I'm not the only one with a sob story. So what's yours?"

Jim clenches his jaw. There's a lie on the tip of his tongue, a glib response that would keep some shield around what remains of his privacy. But when he opens his mouth he winds up saying, "Demon killed my father a long time ago. I was still a kid."

Bones regards him in silence for a long time. Finally he says, "Judging by your impulse control, you're still a kid now."

Smiling slowly, Jim sits up and then stands. "Don't even front, Bones, you love it. Get some rest -- we're hitting the road tomorrow. Scotty will keep on it. He knows how to find me if he needs to."

  


  
They leave Missoula and Scotty behind for a straight-up restless spirit in Walla Walla. Jim blasts the radio and can't keep the smile off his face when Bones tells him in no uncertain terms exactly what he thinks of Jim's taste in music. There's such a thing as a groove, he thinks, and it just might be that they're getting into it.

But their third day in Washington Jim's in a foul state of mind, woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something and took it from there. He picks a fight with Bones over lunch, just for the hell of it, and whatever the hell it is that's up with his mood has him dangerously, *stupidly* distracted when they go to scope out the abandoned saw mill at the center of all the recent attacks.

He gets pinned down. Literally, flat on his back with the ghost's knee against his sternum and his own damn knife descending toward his throat. Jim wraps his hand around the blade and lets it slice into his palm in a desperate bid to keep it from doing the same to his jugular.

Just when his arm feels about to give out, an iron bar swings and the bastard dissipates and Bones reaches down to help him up. "You know," Bones says, his tone dry but something troubled in his expression, "you should maybe get in the habit of hollering when you're in trouble. You're not on your own anymore."

Jim ignores him and wraps his hand with one of the strips of cloth he keeps stashed for waxing the 'Vette. "Just a scratch," he mutters when Bones presses him about how bad it is. "Let's go. We're not going to be able to take this fucker out just yet."

He should have known that wouldn't work for long. Even he doesn't realize quite how bad it is until he pulls out his computer back at the motel and blood smears across the white plastic. Bones sees before he can block his view. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Jim. Give it here."

"It's nothing," Jim tries to insist.

Bones stomps out of the room, muttering under his breath. He returns with the duffel crammed full of supplies from Uhura's pharmacy heist. "Sit down, shut up, and let me see."

Jim caves. Bones's tone brooks no argument, and he doesn't really want to get socked in the jaw again.

Bones works silently, cleaning and disinfecting the deep gash in Jim's palm before threading a needle and stitching it tidily. Jim sprawls in his chair and thinks that the only thing needed to complete the scene would be a bottle of booze for him to swig from. He really wishes he had one. "Thanks," he says tightly, while Bones is wrapping his hand in clean gauze.

Bones stares at him. Jim can't read the look in his eyes at all, can't quite figure out how to connect the dots he senses are laid out in front of him, can't quite see the picture they're supposed to make. Bones's fingers rest lightly on his wrist. "We'll need to keep an eye on this," he says gruffly. "Hands are prone to infection."

"And I do like to get mine dirty," Jim quips, seized by a sudden need to loosen up the mood. He offers up a lopsided smile.

Bones's eyes just darken in response. "I've noticed that," he mutters. "Jim..."

Jim stands up abruptly. "Right, so, I'm thinking we should probably research--"

Out of nowhere -- nowhere, Jim thinks, he didn't see this coming, he couldn't have -- Bones gets up and kisses him square on the mouth.

  


  
Jim has always prided himself on being pretty smooth when it comes to matters of sex and, well, getting it.

Hell, from grateful would-be victims alone he's been propositioned in nearly every way imaginable, from the routine and straightforward to the awkward and bizarre. Pretty much the only thing that's ever actually shocked the hell out of him was the dude who wanted to get it on right there in the cemetery after he helped Jim salt and burn the bones of the demented spirit tormenting his family.

Even that time, he recovered pretty damn fast. He negotiated a quick drive back to his motel and then let the guy have his filthy way, because in the long run he's always been able to handle just about everything so long as it's brief and contained and he gets to drive away from it the next morning.

When Bones kisses him, though, he loses his bearings and can't for the life of him find them again. He freezes on the spot. Bones steps in closer and palms his face and Jim thinks this is a bad fucking idea.

He thinks, there's no leaving this behind.

Bones licks at his lips, bites at the lower one. His hands drop and push up under Jim's shirt. When he peels it up, Jim lifts his arms without really considering it, lets Bones drag the cotton over his head. He lowers them to curl loosely around Bones's shoulders, and he tips his head and Bones's tongue sweeps into his mouth. "What the hell, man?" he mumbles after a minute. His voice sounds loud, too loud, cutting through the quiet hum of the heater and the rasps of their belabored breathing.

Bones bows his head, rests it against the swell of muscle along Jim's shoulder. "I just need -- I don't know," he mutters. "Is it a problem?"

Yes, Jim wants to say. Yeah, it's the biggest problem yet. He's opened up his entire damn life to this man and this, sex, his body, his fucking personal *bubble* -- it's all he has left. He should hold this line.

He should keep *something* for himself. Just one little thing.

But Bones needs him and he... he's quickly forgetting what it was ever like not to respond to that.

In his silence Bones's lips move across his skin; his hands work to open Jim's jeans. "Let me," he murmurs. "Just let me." His fingers dip in and curl around Jim's cock.

Jim bucks into the touch. "Shit," he groans, and knows he's done for.

They wind up on the bed, stripped bare, mouths and hands inflicting series of pleasant hurts. Bones is a biter, using teeth more than tongue in his hurried exploration of the scars that map the course of Jim's private little war for and against the world. He seems fascinated by the twisted rope of raised flesh that arcs across Jim's chest -- "leprechaun," Jim gasps, and wraps his leg up and around, lifts his hips frantically.

"Bullshit."

"Hand to god-- *fuck*" Bones shifts and slides and gathers both their cocks in one hand. "You can, you can fuck me," Jim says on a ragged gasp. Bones's fingers tighten. "If you want."

Teeth tug at his ear. "Turn over," Bones growls.

  


  
It's clinical and efficient -- until it's not. Jim lies flat and struggles not to flat-out hump the scratchy polyester coverlet while Bones kneels at his side and works him open with slick fingers. He doesn't move when Bones stretches along his back, when Bones works his cock in with short, rocking strokes.

He stays still while Bones fucks him down into the mattress and blankets him with his body, his sweat, his gasps and grunts. Jim just fists the blanket with his one good hand and closes his eyes, presses his face into the pillow. His head starts to pound with the pressure of oxygen deprivation and his lungs hurt but he pushes it.

He controls it, this tiny act of breathing and his focus on it. It's... something.

At least while it lasts. "*Jim*." Bones's voice rumbles, low and rough in his ear, need and demand pulling Jim out of his own head, insisting that he be here for this, that he be *present*.

That he not do this, either, in his own damn way. Jim lifts his head and gasps, sucks in gulps of fresh air as Bones keeps pinning him down and prying him open and taking everything Jim is capable of giving him and then some.

Jim feels like he should resent it. He should resent this as much as -- *more* than he resented it when Bones grabbed the keys and insisted on driving the 'Vette. He should want to push back and fight like he has every time Bones has criticized his food, his speeding, the scams that keep him in funds.

Instead his skin explodes with sensation and Bones's cock bumps his prostate, over and over, and here in the moment all Jim wants is more.

All he wants is this. Bones groans and drags his teeth across the lumpy scars that cover Jim's shoulder. The mimicry of the first thing Bones ever saved him, *healed* him from, sends a bone-deep shudder through his body. He ruts down against the bed and keens as his orgasm hits. "Bones," he gasps. "Oh, fuck. *Fuck*."

Bones pushes deep and pumps shallowly, rapidly, until he comes with a growl of satisfaction. His weight settles even more heavily across Jim's back as his hips rock lazily. "Jim," he mutters when he finally goes still. "I..."

"Ungh," Jim grunts. "Whatever, c'mon, get off. You weigh a fucking ton."

Bones pulls out and rolls to the side without arguing. Jim takes a minute to feel the simple stir of air along his body, to reacquaint himself with the notion of personal space, before sitting up with a grimace. "I'm gonna grab a shower," he mutters.

Bones yawns. "Wrap your hand," he orders.

Jim rolls his eyes, but snags a plastic liner from the ice bucket on his way into the bathroom.

There are worse things, he supposes, than having someone around who gives a damn.


End file.
